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Bossuet vs. Jouarre's Women

Dan Graves, MSL

What authority should women exercise in the church? This has been a
highly charged issue throughout church history. In Medieval times, some
abbesses were granted a great deal of power, taking tithes, judging
civil disputes, and commanding neighboring monks. One abbey with such
powers was Jouarre in France.

Jouarre was founded under the inspiration of a visit by Columban, the
sixth century Irish monk who dotted Europe with monasteries. Relatives
of the nobleman and clergy with whom Columban stayed founded male and
female abbeys at Jouarre near the river Marne. The female house was
predominant and its abbesses enjoyed autonomy from the nearby Bishop of
Meaux, answering directly to the pope. The monks who lived at Jouarre
and later at nearby Rebais, were under the jurisdiction of these
women.

Ermentrude, a diligent abbess, gathered many relics at Jouarre,
making it a center for the awe-inspired, the curious, and the sick. So
famous was the abbey that Pope Innocent II visited it in 1131. Its
facilities were large enough to host a church council in 1133.

Five-hundred years after the founding of the abbey, the bishop of
Meaux contested the right of the abbey to control the local churches,
clergy, and people. Pope Honarius II ruled in favor of the bishop, but
Jouarre presented a strong defense and Innocent II reversed the
decision. The sparring continued for almost a century. Abbess Eustache
was forced to publicly submit to the bishop of Meaux. Her successor,
Agnes I, refused to swear her oath to the Bishop, however, and was
excommunicated. The next abbess, Agnes II traveled to Rome, bearing
documents that proved the abbey's historical exemption. Pope Innocent
III was convinced and restored Jouarre's ancient rights. And so matters
rested until after the Protestant Reformation when the Roman Catholic
church cracked down on independents. Jouarre's nemesis was the new
bishop of Meaux, Jacques Bossuet.

Jacques Benigne Bossuet's eloquent histories and sermons ornament the
literature of the age and his deeds show him as an active participant in
the ecclesiastical and political affairs of the day. He squelched the
Jansenists and was a driving force behind the Four Articles that
rejected papal dominion over the French church, asserting the ancient
"Gallican liberties." He rejoiced at the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes which had protected the Huguenots and did nothing to
ameliorate harassment of the French Calvinists. Many Protestants have
heard of him only as the persecutor of mystical Madame Guyon and
suppressor of the mild fellow-Catholic François Fénelon.
When he was appointed bishop of Meaux in 1681, a showdown with Jouarre
loomed.

Seizing on weaknesses in the throne (which was dependent on Bossuet
as champion of Gallican rights) and the papacy (which was hesitant to
interfere in the French church, because of the Gallican controversy)
Bossuet accused the abbey of simony. Simony is the attempt to buy
spiritual office. Five hundred years earlier, as a gesture of peace,
Jouarre sent a gift of grain to the Bishop of Meaux. According to
Bossuet, Jouarre bought its rights with that gift! The charge was so
absurd that it quickly collapsed.

Bossuet shifted his ground. The abbey's privileges were not
authentic, he claimed. Even if authentic, he argued (incorrectly), the
councils of Trent and Vienna had revoked such privileges. Jouarre
defended itself vigorously, showing that as late as 1631 Parliament had
confirmed its rights. But Jouarre argued in vain. On
this day, January 26, 1690, the men won the skirmish; the judges
ruled in Bossuet's favor. A month later Bossuet led his followers to the
abbey and demanded entrance. He was barred. On March 2nd, he again
sought submission. The following day he forced the locks, entered, and
celebrated mass in the chapel dressed in the full splendor of a bishop.
Henrietta of Lorraine, the reigning abbess, resigned. The next abbess,
Marguerite de Rohan, submitted to Bossuet, but refused consecration at
his hands, waiting ten years to receive it from his successor.

Bibliography:

Durant, Will and Durant, Ariel. The Age of Louis XIV. The
Story of Civilization. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963.